Simple Eats

Super Simple Tomato Soup

1 onion diced
2 carrots chopped
2 ribs of celery chopped
1 potato peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
salt and pepper to taste
1 quart home grown and canned tomatoes, or store bought

Simmer onions, carrots, celery, potato and garlic in water until soft. Remove from heat and let cool 15 minutes. Blend in a blender with the canned tomatoes. Return to pan and heat up. Enjoy!


Vegetable Broth

By simply saving the scraps left from preparing other whole food meals, you can prepare a virtually free broth. In a 2 quart plastic pitcher I put the scraps that are left behind from assembling each evenings dinners and keep it refrigerated until it's full. Fresh carrot peels and ends, potato peelings, bell pepper tops and seeds, broccoli and cauliflower stems, celery trimmings, onion ends and peels, cabbage leaves and cores, etc. Whatever fresh vegetation scraps you have been using throughout the week to formulate your meals. When you have 2 quarts of these scraps you are ready to create a delicious vegetable broth and never have to purchase broth of any kind again if you do not wish to.

 Place vegetable scraps into a 6 quart pan.
Cover with 12 cups of water.
Add 1 tablespoon of salt, 5 peppercorns, 2 cloves of crushed garlic, 2 bay leaves and 1/4 teaspoon of thyme leaves. Bring to a boil, reduce to medium high heat and let cook for 35-45 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. Strain the liquid from the scraps and you have beautiful vegetable broth and clean vegetable scraps ready for your compost pile. Enjoy!

Fiery Fiesta Pasta 

1 onion chopped
1/2 butternut squash cubed
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 quart home canned or store bought tomatoes
salt and pepper to taste
sprinkle of crushed red pepper (can be omitted if you don't like the heat)


Saute onion and squash in constant but minimal water until soft. Add garlic, simmer until soft. Pour in tomatoes. Sprinkle in crushed red pepper, cayenne or any fresh "hot" pepper. (Salt and pepper your vegetables as you add them to the pan, when working with fresh food it takes a LOT of salt to over salt something.) Prepare your noodles according to their directions. Sprinkle some fresh grated cheese on top and enjoy.

Bean Dip 

1 Cup dried garbanzo beans (or any dried bean you like, they all work lovely) cooked until soft.
vegetable oil (amounts vary depending upon personal preference)
lemon juice (amounts vary here as well for same reasons)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
dash of cayenne


In a food processor, pulse cooked beans until mashed. Slowly add oil then lemon juice until creamy. Add herbs and blend. Achieve desired consistency with personal practice. Garlic can easily be added to this by adding a clove to the beans while cooking. Substitute or add any herbs according to personal tastes.